I left her there to do her job and went to do mine. I spent the next hour right next door, but I wasn’t working. I was listening. I was aware of every sound coming from her direction. I heard the scrape of the heavy trays, the sound of her humming to herself, and the occasional frustrated huff.
Then, I heard it.
It wasn’t just a sound—it was a symphony of destruction. A metal rack screeching against concrete, the hollow thud of forty plastic trays filled with dirt and plants hitting the floor, and a sharp, startled shriek.
I was through the door before the last tray had finished bouncing.
Poppy was standing in the center of a disaster. Soil was everywhere—sprayed across the floor, the walls, and Poppy herself. The heavy metal rack was lying on its side, and the seedlings were scattered like green confetti.
She was standing perfectly still, her face a mask of pure mortification. There was a smear of dark peat moss across her cheek, and a seedling clutched in her hand.
Two other workers appeared in the doorway behind me doing a very poor job of not laughing. I turned and looked at them once and they found somewhere else to be. I looked back at Poppy.
“The rack,” I said, my voice low.
“Was not bolted to the floor,” she snapped back, though her voice had a slight tremor in it. She was trying for defiant, but I could see the dismay in the way her shoulders were hunched. “That seems like an oversight on someone’s part.”
I looked at the rack, now lying on its side. It had never tipped in eleven years. “It’s never needed to be bolted, Poppy. “
“Well.” She looked down at the seedlings around her feet, and something moved in her face—the defiance dropping just enough to let the genuine dismay through. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll fix it. Them. I’ll fix them.”
I walked toward her, my boots crunching on the spilled soil. She didn’t move as I stepped into her space. Up close, I could see the way she was holding herself very still, as if she was working hard to keep it together. And her eyes. Damn it, her eyes were starting to fill with tears and it made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. She looked like a mess, and I’d never wanted to haul a woman against me more than I did in that moment.
I couldn’t resist smoothing the dirt from her cheek. “Are you hurt?” My gaze looked her over, but I didn’t see any obvious injury.
“No,” she shook her head, her bottom lip trembling. Damn, but I wanted to kiss her.
“You’re a klutz,” I said, the word sounding more like a caress than an insult.
“I’m a disaster.” Her eyes finally dropped to the floor. “I’m so sorry, Cord. I’ll fix it. I’ll stay all night if I have to. Please don’t fire me.”
The vulnerability in her voice hit me harder than the crash had. I reached up and plucked the seedling out of her hand.
“I’m not firing you,” I growled. “But you’re a terrible liar. You’ve never worked around plants in your life. Or done this type of manual labor, have you?”
She hesitated. “No. But, I’m a fast learner. I swear.”
I would have left any other employee alone to deal with the mistake they’d made on their own.
I didn’t with Poppy.
I picked up the rack, then started helping her pick up the plants. “If the root ball is intact, we can save them. If not, they’re trash.”
“No. You can’t do that. It’s my fault.”
“Poppy, I can’t sell broken seedlings.”
“Okay, I understand that, but just to discard them is wrong.”
“No, it’s wasted time to true and save them. And time is money.”
She looked at me, her eyes flashing a little. “Then I’ll take them back to my cabin. I’ll help them grow.”
“Help them grow?” One of my eyebrows rose. “What, with that infamous green thumb you have.”
“Okay. I admit. I don’t know how to grow things, but I’ll learn. Please let me take them.”
It didn’t take me long to fold under her gaze. “Fine, you can have them.”
